Jay Fine, BatteryParkCity.com’s favorite and often featured photographer, is showcasing his Fine photography in an exhibit entitled, “The End of Manhattan.”

With Lower Manhattan as his muse, Jay Fine will be exhibiting his work which includes his iconic shot of the Statue of Liberty struck by lightning, an image that had received critical praise in media outlets internationally.

Along with Antonio Petracca’s “10”, Fine’s “The End of Manhattan” opens at the Kim Foster Gallery on September 8th from 6pm-8pm. Both exhibits will be displayed through October 15th.

Antonio Petraccaâ€™s new exhibition “10” is a journey that started with 9/11. Petracca a Battery Park City resident, who was displaced and living in a hotel, felt compelled to begin a new series of paintings that responded to the tragedy of 9/11. The mission of Petracca’s exhibit is to depict the destruction, the sense of great loss and, more importantly, the can-do spirit of rebuilding and renewal that most New Yorkers felt at the time.

On the flip side, Jay Fine’s exhibit “The End of Manhattan” might have a dire name, but is more meditative view on the photographer’s life in Battery Park City than a 9/11 commemoration.Â Included in the show is 60×40 inch version of the aforementioned Statue of Liberty and Lightning photo, which was more recently featured in the August 2011 National Geographic Magazine.

According to Fine, “The exhibits compliment each other and should generate, we hope, a lot of interest, not just from the people who liver here but from folks around the world.Â Some of the greatest responses to my work are from France, Italy and South East Asia based on the feedback from my Facebook page and Flickr site.”

The exhibit itself is pegged to be a Downtown family affair, Â with the framing of the prints done by Battery Park City residents and owners of the World Trade Art Gallery, Jane and Doug Smith. The large scale prints were made by Joseph Ng, whose wife works in the Financial District.

The Kim Foster Gallery is located at 529 W 20th Street, New York.
For more information please check the galleryâ€™s website: www.kimfostergallery.com/

Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright will be performing a free show at the World Financial Center Winter Garden on June 28th at 7 PM ET. According to Billboard, Wainwright will perform with the New York City Opera and with pianist Kevin Murphy.

As if the fact that the show is free wasn’t enough reason to attend, Wainwright will premiere excerpts from ‘Prima Donna,’ his original opera. He will also perform some of his favorite operas.

‘Prima Donna’ is scheduled to performed in its entirety by the New York City Opera in the Spring of 2012.

Are you planning to attend Rufus Wainwright’s free show? Are you interested in his opera?

The Wall Street Bull, a famous, iconic symbol of the financial district, underwent a bit of an involuntary makeover during the holiday season, as NYC based artist Agata Olek outfitted the bronzed beast with a garish pink and blue crocheted sweater in guerilla fashion on December 27th.

The Charging Bullâ€™s fashionable display lasted a mere two hours and it fell in line with the seasonâ€™s tradition of ugly holiday sweaters.

However, Olek said that the sweater was a gift to NYC and that it was a tribute to Arturo di Modica, who illegally put the bull on Wall Street during Christmas of 1987 following the Stock Market crash.

Clearing the East Bathtub (Detail) by Marcus Robinson (marcusrobinsonart.com)

Artisan and filmmaker Marcus Robinson, a native of Ireland, has been documenting the World Trade Center site rebuild through his â€œRebuilding the World Trade Centerâ€ installation, which is a series of artistic works, ranging from paintings to drawings to short films. Robinson purposely chose to create a body of work that could not be restrained by language and cultural barriers and therefore elected to demonstrate the events that took place on the site. Robinson has self-funded his project, with some financial help from Silverstein Properties.

DNAInfo reports that Robinson, 51, moved to TriBeCa to be closer to the site. “It’s about the passing of time and the whole idea of transformation,” he said. He began working on the project in 2006, when the first foundation at One World Trade Center was laid down.

To date, the project hosts 40 paintings and 70 drawings and is only scratching the surface of its potential. Robinson hopes to one day craft a film that combines video footage of the events along with his artwork, juxtaposing the physical world with the envisioned one. He wonâ€™t show his work or release a film until construction on the site is finished, which will take years. Robinson, however, is committed to seeing this project through to completion at all costs.

Robinson, who has a background in architectural photography and documentary filmmaking, works on his paintings at the World Trade Center site itself, as well as on the 48th floor of 7 World Trade Center, which has spectacular views of the harbor and Midtown. He captures the workers as they do their thing and placed time-lapse cameras around the site. His work is abstract, capturing shapes and colors as opposed to concrete imagery.

Greenwich Jewelers Adds A Bit of Sparkle to Fashion’s Night Out on September 10th!

Greenwich Jewelers and jewelry expert & blogger Beth Bernstein will offer guests style and trend tips for the upcoming fall and winter seasons during their Fashion’s Night Out event.

Featuring exquisite collections of designer jewelry from Anne Spartun, Jamie Joseph, Lika Behar, Melissa Joy Manning and Saundra Messinger, a silent auction will be held in support of the Greater New York City chapter of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

A specialty piece designed exclusively for Greenwich Jewelers is a Gorjana bracelet, a free gift with any purchase of $250 or more during the event.

Refreshments and live music will be offered during the silent auction.

Greenwich Jewelers is located atÂ 64 Trinity Place (at Rector Street)
The event and silent auction will be held between 7-11pm.

BatteryParkCity.com receives many contributions/tips on our site for ideas and current events — and we love it!

Recently we got a true gem of nostalgia. Our Twitter pal TruthSeerum, sent us this picture of Agnes Denes harvesting fields of wheat in 1982.

As we’re preparing for the commemoration of the World Trade Center terror attacks, we’ve made a call out for great memories of our neighborhood before 9/11 and our hopes for the neighborhood in the future. We thought we’d give you the first taste of contributions we’ve received.

If you have a great memory like this, or a personal story about 9/11 please feel free to send it to us at contribute@batteryparkcity.com.

After months of preparations, in May 1982, a 2-acre wheat field was planted on a landfill in lower Manhattan, two blocks from Wall Street and the World Trade Center, facing the Statue of Liberty. Two hundred truckloads of dirt were brought in and 285 furrows were dug by hand cleared of rocks and garbage. The seeds were down by hand and the furrows covered with soil. The field was maintained for four months, cleared of wheat smut, weeded, fertilized and sprayed against mildew fungus, and an irrigation system set up. The crop was harvested on August 16 and yielded over 1000 pounds of healthy, golden wheat.

Planting and harvesting a field of wheat on land worth $4.5 billion created a powerful paradox. Wheatfield was a symbol, a universal concept, it represented food, energy, commerce, world trade, economics. It referred to mismanagement, waste, world hunger and ecological concerns. It called attention to our misplaced priorities. The harvested grain traveled to twenty-eight cities around the world in an exhibition called â€œThe International Art Show for the End of World Hungerâ€, organized by the Minnesota Museum of Art (1987-90). The seeds were eventually carried away by people who planted them in many parts of the globe.

In an effort to beautify the multitude of cold construction sites in and around Lower Manhattan, the Downtown Alliance has announced three new art pieces as part of their Re:Construction initiative.

Re:Construction is a local construction site beautification project spearheaded by the Downtown Alliance.

“Now Lower Manhattans workers, residents and six million annual visitors can enjoy Richard Pasquarelli as part of our program to recast construction sites as canvases for innovative public art and architecture,” says Elizabeth H. Berger, President of the Downtown Alliance.

Re:Construction is a public art program which is funded by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. The program has produced 16 pieces since 2007, seven of which are currently up for viewing.

“These additional installments by Richard Pasquarelli are worthy additions to the success of the Re:Construction program” said Lower Manhattan Development Corporation President David Emil. “We’re proud to fund these exhibitions and look forward to our continued partnership with the Downtown Alliance to ease the negative impacts of Downtown’s rebuilding projects.”

The three pieces unveiled this week, will be placed at three construction sites south of Chambers Street. The first piece “Restore the View” can be seen at the site of CUNY’s Fitterman Hall, a building which was destroyed on 9/11 at Barclay Street.

The two other works are: “Secret Gardens” will be installed at the Chambers Street road construction project which spans from West Street to West Broadway, and “Hours of the Day” which is set to be installed at Washington and Albany Streets.

Once construction is completed at these areas, the pieces will come down.

Richard Pasquarelli is a 41-year-old Bronxville born artist whose paintings have been seen nationwide, including at the National September 11 Memorial Museum.

“As a painter, my work has a psychological intimacy,” says Pasquarelli, “My work tends to have an element of mystery and ambiguity that leaves it open to many interpretations and I hope that passersby will each have their own individual response to these works.”

The Battery will not be the most electric spot this weekend.
The Rock the Bells tour will call upon some of hip hop music’s greatest will converge to perform it’s second to last show on Governor’s Island this weekend.

Musical legend and R&B recluse Lauryn Hill has come out of hiding to perform on this tour to fantastic reviews. Her performance in Governor’s Island is only a couple days after the 12 year anniversary of Â ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.’

Other artists set to perform include, Snoop Dogg, A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, Slick Rick, KRS-One and many others.